Conventional furniture, whether provided to the consumer in completed or modular form, tends to be quite limited in its appearance and function do to limitations in its structure. For example, a conventional one-piece sofa purchased as an assembled unit has a fixed appearance that, while it can be modified through potentially costly reupholstering to change the color or pattern should the owner decide a change in appearance is warranted, is limited to the same general overall shape. Modular seating systems are known which allow expansion by adding additional seating units to the structure, but the added units produced by the manufacturer may be substantially equal in appearance to the other units of the structure. Furthermore, once an additional seating unit is incorporated into the modular system, each unit may still limited in that alteration of that unit's appearance will likely require significant cost or effort, for example to reupholster the unit to change its color or pattern.
Furthermore, conventional furniture assembled furniture is bulky and thus awkward and costly to transport. Even conventional modular furniture shipped as packaged unassembled components may take up a significant volume of space overall, for example due to components having uncomplimentary shapes that do not bundle well into a compact configuration, even though the components are each individually smaller and easier to handle than the resulting piece of assembled furniture, and thus may still be costly to ship. Empty space within shipping containers increases fuel consumption, as the number of articles transportable within a single vessel at one time is decreased.
It is therefore desirable to provide a modular furniture system that facilitates relatively easy changes in appearance and can be packed into a volume reduced from that of the resulting product to lower shipping costs.